1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to on-site communication systems, and more particularly to an on-site communication system providing receiver identification capability.
2. Description of the Prior Art
There are many different communication systems in wide use today. These communication systems are broadly classified in terms of the type of service provided, such as wide area and on-site communication systems. As can be inferred from the classifications, wide area systems provide wide area coverage, such as for a complete metropolitan area, whereas on-site systems provide communication coverage for only a limited operating area, such as an office building or hospital complex and the immediately adjacent area. Such on-site communication systems, such as paging systems providing one way information transfer, generally provide such paging service for only the occupants or employees of the building or complex. Because the coverage area provided by such on-site paging systems is limited, the ability to provide reliable transmission of paging messages to the system users is complicated by the fact that some page recipients may periodically travel beyond the coverage area provided by the on-site system.
This problem is particularly true for some professionals, such as doctors who practice in one or more hospitals, and who also practice out of a private office at a medical plaza remotely located from the hospitals. Various doctors registry systems have been provided in hospitals and hospital complexes to track when a doctor is within the facility, and consequently capable of being contacted with the on-site paging system, and when the doctor has left the facility. These prior art systems include such methods as manual entry of the doctors presence on a daily log by a guard or receptionist, manual entry by a receptionist or the doctor of their status through the use of a keypad or computer terminal, and the use by the doctors of coded cards readable by card readers. Such prior art systems which rely on such manual intervention has proven to be less than fully reliable because of problems associated with having to regularly check into and out of the hospital complex, especially in times of emergency. In those instances where the doctor fails to check in, or where the doctor fails to check out, the reliability of message transmission using the on-site paging system can become degraded substantially, and in those instances where an emergency may arise, could result in a life threatening situation.
A system is required which will allow automatically tracking the presence of a pager user, such as the doctor, when the user is within range of the on-site communication system, and when the user is outside the range of the on-site communication system. Such a system would greatly enhance the ability of the on-site communication system to reliably deliver messages.